Friday Chats – It’s all about the people.

My brother called the other night to say his kids were with their mom in their house and it was filling with water, chest high water.

I won’t get into all the details, because really, it’s not my story to tell, but I spent the night praying for their safety, all of them.

My brother tried swimming into the subdivision, but the current was too strong. Then he remembered a friend who had a little boat. He said that even with three men, it was difficult to paddle against the current rushing at 30-40 miles per hour.

He got to the house and it was filled with five feet of water. You can imagine his terror.

He found neighbors with their infant and toddler hiding on top of the top kitchen cabinets.

They are all safe. They all got out with their lives, but that is it. When you have five feet of water in your single story house, everything is gone. The furniture was floating.

Life can change in an instant.

Suddenly every priority is in order.

The bottom line is the people.

Houses get built and are torn down. Jobs are here today and gone tomorrow. Money is earned and spent. Our things turn to a pile of dust.

It’s the people who are important.

Sometimes it takes a crisis to put life into perspective.

I don’t say that lightly. Losing everything is something no person should have to live through, but I am thankful for the lives saved, for the people who put their lives on the line to save another.

It seems like there is crisis after crisis in our world and there are always the people who work tirelessly for the life of another.

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I haven’t posted before but I love your mom Bev and have been blessed knowing her and seeing her live through difficult situations and coming through with grace and faith. I love the forum of Face Book-its ability to keep loved ones connected and informed. Hearing that her son, your brother, and his precious daughters, were in this frightening situation prompted prayers and concern! And a desire to DO something! I do believe love is an action word too. Hopefully we all will be able to do something for someone we know or through organizations like Samaritan’s Purse, help those who are on the “front lines” to demonstrate the love of Christ!

I’m so glad your brother and his family are ok! We’ve had some interesting weather in our neck of the woods too, nothing quite so severe as 5 ft. of water in homes though. A tornado touched down about a half hours away and hail, heavy rains too. Very thankful no one was injured. I have friends who regularly deploy with Samaritans Purse disaster relief and they left a few days ago for Arkansas, this is their 3rd deployment this year! Praise God for SP and the willing workers who can leave on the spur of the moment to help those in need.

What a reminder. Life, life is important. The rest is temporary. I’m so thankful they are safe.

It’s been a sleepless week here. Storms, very sick children, big life changes– I feel like it should all be super stressful. But every morning I wake up thankful. Thank you for putting us all straight this week. Xo

Wow. That would be terrifying. I’ve never experienced a flood but in April 2011 we had tornadoes that rocked our county and changed my life. This past week we had a string of tornadoes headed our way overnight so me and the husband camped out in the living room until about 3 a.m. The kids slept in clothes and shoes. We were the lucky ones this time…others in our state not so much.

This week I have also contacted all the local bloggers I could find (about 4) to see if they would be interested in a bloggy meet-up. I’m really excited but not sure what to do past this point. Just get together and chat or add a little structure to it?

My oldest son will be turning 14 this month :/ so I have been getting things together for our birthday camping trip on the 17th!

What a week for you. I’m glad to hear that your brother found everyone safe. 10 years ago we had a flood in our southern Jersey town, a matter of several dams breaking. My sister-in-law lived at the center of this teeny tiny town and her ground floor apartment was almost filled to the top in such a short time. I could never imagine the stress of the body and mind that these poor people suffer, every year during floods and tornadoes and am so thankful that hasn’t happened closer to home. I read a story about a victim of the recent tornado’s who had lost her children and had to fight the urge to go to the school and get my kids out.

My own week was exciting itself. My daughter was in the news paper, so that was fun. The local paper did an article about our church hoagie sale we do every month. They got a great picture of My 7 year old as she shuttled hoagies to the cashier. Did the usual nagging the 11 year old to do her homework, and really, really, really want to finally submit my book to amazon that I have been being lazy about.

Oh and I dropped your blog name in my post yesterday. Because I finally wrote a post after 7 months. Joy!

That’s all in my neck of the woods, just enjoying the sunshine and being thankful for everything that I have.